06/26/2026
First time needing to continue my words in the comments….
A day like today, I feel it’s time to share why this place is under my helm.
But first I’d like to yell the reasons I didn’t buy this place:
- To take drawings, put money in RRSP and retire
- For the perks of unlimited coffee
- To position myself socially
Not that there is a thing wrong with any of those, they just are not relevant to me.
Rise+Grind became mine because I knew I could wear the burden of a community need. In 2018 I closed my yoga studio of 5000 students in Port Coquitlam BC after 5 years of operating. It was a loving, thriving community with its own little eco-social system; it was emotionally horrible and uncomfortably abrupt the way in which the business closed and though some students maintained their kind nature, more forgot the supportive and self-sacrificing actions I’d taken over the years, or perhaps they felt it was not enough. Either way- the reality was as such. I was the only face and the only email and the only phone number responsible for the closing.
I relocated to Unity shortly after deconstructing the yoga community and landed as delicately as a hurt person could, in this small town, unexpected coffee shop. Where people smiled at me, baristas kindly talked with me and I answered emails through flooding tears about when I could potentially etransfer them refunded money or direct them to other studios who would honour their class passes and memberships— continuing to try and do right by so, so many people. It was an impossible task, now that it was so long ago; in that year, I put in as much time as a customer at rise+grind, abusing the free wifi and emailing Closed Business things, as the baristas (KW) put in working to craft beverages for all these small town folk.
(Continue reading in the comments pretty please!)
